Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our staff did meet with APADY on October 7th and we did share with them our schematic design. As I mentioned and as my deputy minister, Ms. Haener has also mentioned, there's been a lot of meetings that have been happening as well. So we did give that design, in terms of what we're going to be doing with our court order, to APADY. Any feedback that they did have, we're still awaiting that feedback as well. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

CSO is a very integral part of our department when it comes to income assistance and programs. They do a great job in providing information to our clients, as well as our Career Development Officers, and we're just finishing up a one-year pilot program with Employment Transition Officers that actually go into the communities. Some of our Current Development Officers also go into the communities to provide education, training, information on resume writings, skill development and other areas in terms of literacy and numeracy to help people find jobs who apply for training workshops and finding...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the past years there has been funding given to the community to upgrade the facility. Some was roof replacements, foundation remediation. We did tour that school as well. The foundation is good. Utilization rate of Moose Kerr School I think is 41 per cent.

As I mentioned, when the utilization rate gets to 85 per cent then that's when we look at replacing the school or retrofitting or adding onto it. As I mentioned, it has been identified for renovations or replacement in approximately 2019, but we'll continue to work with all our schools moving forward just to see...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The CSFTNO were working collaboratively with the departments when that proposal was submitted and in terms of the schematic designs that did meet our capital standards were put into the designs that were presented to APADY as well as to CSFTNO. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can meet but I mean, as I mentioned, that we're meeting our standards for construction of capital projects and the court order. In terms of the proposal going forward, as I mentioned, if you want to add the cultural side of things and add things, which is unique because it's only the French schools that can access that funding, we need to ensure what those additions are, and we can't get the specifics until we have that schematic design. I am willing to sit down with the Member a little bit later and give him some ideas on what we can do in terms of next steps as well...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I know when we went through the business planning process for main estimates for 2017-2018 we had some really good discussions on some ways and unique ways that we can get people back into the workforce through our Income Assistance Program, and the Member brought a very interesting concept forward and it's something that the department can look into. Obviously, you don’t want to have people relying on income assistance rather than finding ways to get them into the workforce, into training and skill development and becoming a more active member of society. So we are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comments and the remarks. As mentioned earlier today, I've been to about 20 of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories since being in the position of Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. A lot of those communities have gone into the learning centres, and I've done tours of the schools and there is a need out there. We only can stretch our dollars so far, that any federal support that we can get is going to be greatly appreciated and I know that the communities will want to see some extra dollars there as well. So I appreciate the support...

That's the total cost of the project for that year, and as I mentioned there is a proposal that they go to the federal government, so, yes, no, that is total cost of project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and we can't look at a meeting on that subject and that proposal; however, the proposal that’s going in is what meets our criteria for our standards in building schools for the population and the enrolment rates of that school. I mean, if the Member wants to talk about putting in a glamorous proposal, working together, we still don’t have that schematic design, and we need that design if we want to work to get more funding from Heritage Canada. That's the next step before we can start seeing how we can look at getting access in the federal funding.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, we've already submitted a proposal, it's ahead of the game. Heritage Canada hasn't asked for callout for proposals. We're hoping to hear something by January or February where those discussions have taken place. Any further opportunities that myself and my department can have in engaging and discussing these matters with the Minister of Heritage Canada to come to a solution that's happy, that'll make everyone happy, I think. We'll take those opportunities as soon as we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.